Facebook's new search feature: Facebook Graph Search

Facebook make a huge announcement yesterday that can’t be ignored by local businesses. If you have a small business and don’t have a Facebook page or aren’t active on Facebook engaging with your current customers or clients, you are leaving money on the table. How much depends on your business but this new addition to Facebook, the Graph Search, has the power to bring your business to the top of the list when connections of your current customers are searching for your product or service.

Here’s an example to explain how this might work. Assume you are a dentist in Peoria, IL and you have an active Facebook page that most of your patients have liked. You post on a regular basis, several times a week and do get some likes and interaction with your posts. Say the aunt of one of your current patients does a search on Facebook for a local dentist. Because your current patient has already liked your page and is interacting with it, your practice will come up to the top of the search results for the aunt because she’s connected with your patient.

This type of search will side step any SEO requirements, you won’t have to wait to be ranked in a crowded, competitive search engine market, you will go right to the top of the search because of the connection with one patient. Imagine if all your patients are on Facebook and over the course of the time they are using you, they each only have one friend who is looking for a dentist. You would double your business just by using Facebook. Making sure you have regular posts and interactions has never been more important and what’s more, increased interaction on your Facebook page and top search results in that network will improve your ranking on the search engines so you will start to see increased traffic over time.

For business owners who rely on referrals like dentists, lawyers, doctors, plumbers, accountants, this is going to be huge. It’s going to share your good reputation without you having to do anything additional than what you’re already doing, assuming you have a Facebook page now. If not, now is the time to get on board. Facebook is just rolling out this new service so it’s a great time to get your page set up and make sure your current clients/customers/patients like your page. If you have no clue how to get started, or know how to get started but just don’t have the time, contact me right away and we’ll get started!